


Gone Are The Dark Clouds

by acetamide



Series: The One-Eyed Man Is King [2]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acetamide/pseuds/acetamide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been five months, and McCoy finally receives the message that he’s been waiting for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone Are The Dark Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> A missing scene from [The One-Eyed Man Is King](http://archiveofourown.org/works/166952) – in case you haven’t read the original and have no intention of doing so, BASICALLY McCoy’s blind. But they’re both still at Starfleet. This is set within the year that’s missing at the end of the original fic, and finishes in February 2256.

It’s been five months since he stepped onto that blasted shuttle with Jim.

Five months of rigorous testing, of giving blood samples and urine sample and DNA samples. Of being given prescription upon prescription of antibiotics and antivirals in the form of hyposprays, tablets, eyedrops, inhalers, and then being kept under observation to see how efficient each mode of delivery really is. It’s still experimental, and Jim’s not happy about it, but it’s better than what he’d originally wanted to sign up for. If nothing else, these are the best doctors and researchers on the planet. He has more faith in them than Jim does.

Five months of attending basic classes with Jim, getting to know his way around campus and listening to lecturers while his PADD automatically records the whole thing, and later when they’re back in their room Jim explains the diagrams that had been shown.

Five months of infrequent visits with Jo – some in Georgia, some in California, whichever fits in best. Thanksgiving is in Georgia; Christmas is in Riverside. There’s Frank, and so there’s no Sam and Aurelan, and it’s a completely different atmosphere to the last time they visited. On Boxing Day Jim and Frank have a fight, and McCoy and Winona take one each and separate them – Winona takes Frank into the kitchen, and McCoy takes Jim outside. They end up having sex in the barn, and Jim’s black mood lifts.

Five months of Jim snoring in his ear and kicking him in his sleep, and McCoy retaliating by pushing him out of bed and onto the floor.

It’s been five months, and he finally receives the message that he’s been waiting for.

They’re ready to start treatment.

 

***

 

“So… it’s _not_ gene therapy?”

“Well yeah, part of it is, but it’s complicated. My disease is caused by mutation in specific genes that mean my body doesn’t convert oxygen and sugars to energy in all the right places. And the retinal ganglion cells are dead because of it. Nobody really knows how it’s connected to optics though – it just is.”

“Which means that they don’t really know what they’re treating,” Jim points out, and McCoy shakes his head as he squirts toothpaste onto his brush.

“No, they do,” he asserts, turning to face him. “They know the mechanism that causes it, so that’s what they’re treating. They tried single-strand DNA oligonucleotides on some of their earlier test patients but it didn’t work – the base change didn’t take. So what they’re going to do instead is combine stem cell insertion with antisense therapy.”

“And the antisense is that part that’s not technically gene therapy.”

“Exactly,” McCoy nods, and sticks his brush into his mouth. “It’s just to deactivate my own genes while they’re being replaced.”

“I can’t hear what you say when you’re brushing,” Jim points out, and leaves the bathroom. “Now hurry up, I’m horny.”

McCoy nearly sprays the wall with toothpaste.

 

***

 

They inject the cells at ten fifteen on Wednesday morning.

They have a projected timescale – three days for the cells to reach the target area. Then another day for the transcriptional paradigm to activate, once the cells are in the right place and the correct connections are made. Then eyedrops every six hours to deliver signaling molecules that mimic early development, to encourage neural regrowth. Then up to two weeks for the ganglions to grow through his brain, and the first hints of light to appear in front of his eyes. A few more days for shapes. A few more for proper color. A few more after that for detail.

Six weeks.

He starts counting.

 

***

## Day 6

“The Kobiyashi Maru’s tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“I wanted you to be there.”

“I know.”

Jim goes silent for several minutes, and McCoy continues to listen to the PADD that’s propped on his thigh. It’s currently dictating that morning’s Tactical Strategy lecture to him in the cool, measured tones of the default voice – a woman speaking with received pronunciation. In the five months that they’ve been here, Jim has changed the voice to various people from history, the odd celebrity, and somehow Uhura once.

It’s not his PADD though – this one’s Jim, or a spare one, he’s not sure, but he knows that it’s not his. He knows, because the voice that talks to him from his own cold metal box and explains everything and keeps him on track is Jim’s.

 

***

## Day 7

He wakes to Jim climbing onto the biobed with him, working his way under the covers, and is momentarily disorientated.

“What time is it?” he mumbles as Jim presses up against his back, and there’s a pause as Jim presumably checks his watch.

“Just gone midnight.”

“You hack in here?”

“Yeah. They really need to increase their security, I have been some sort of psycho killer or a master thief hoping to make millions.”

“Off of what, their high thread count spare sheets? Or their supremely absorbent and dazzlingly white towels?”

“I don’t know, these sheets are extremely soft,” Jim remarks, pressing his nose into McCoy’s hair. “I reckon I could find a buyer easy.”

“Well luckily, you’re not a thief. How’d the test go?”

Jim doesn’t answer for a moment – he just shrugs against McCoy, and kisses the back of his neck.

“I failed, just like everyone else. I couldn’t concentrate. Not when you were here.”

“There’s always next year.”

“Right,” Jim murmurs, and McCoy can feel him smiling against his skin. “And next year, you’ll be my communications officer.”

“Helmsman,” McCoy corrects him. Jim doesn’t argue.

 

***

## Day 9

They decide that he’s ready to be taken off permanent observation on Thursday. Jim’s got classes so it’s just McCoy in the room, pulling on his own clothes and listening to Tannenbaum give him his debrief. He’s been given a bracelet to wear, an emergency device that he can activate that will bring a medical team running to his exact location.

“There’s going to be some awkward side effects while the ganglions grow through your brain,” Tannenbaum reminds him as he tries to turn his shirt the right way around. “Headaches, seizures, unexpected fatigue. Just general mild neurological malfunctions, nothing major – but if you’re worried about anything, you use that emergency button.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he mutters, and pauses. He’s got his arm stuck in his shirt and his body is stuck at an awkward angle. “You think you could give me a hand with this?”

Sometimes, it’s nice when people forget that he’s blind. Times like this, on the other hand, are pissing annoying.

But hopefully, in four weeks, that won’t be an issue.

 

***

## Day 12

“Stop blinking!”

“Stop putting your fingers near my goddamn eyes!”

“How the hell am I supposed to put in your eyedrops without putting my fingers near your eyes?” Jim exclaims, and McCoy scowls, and blinks. The drop of liquid hits his eyelid in the brief moment that his eyes are shut.

“That was your fault.”

“You can do it yourself if you’re not going to cooperate,” Jim snaps, and McCoy sighs, and forces himself to keep his eyes open. It’s being in public that’s doing it – it’s his first day back in classes and he can’t concentrate, and he can’t help but feel like people are watching him, keeps getting that prickling feeling on the back of his neck. Do people know? Do they know that he’s undergoing gene therapy? He could be just imagining it but whether they are staring or not, it’s making him uncomfortable, and it’s making him twitchy.

The drop catches him by surprise as it lands on the surface of his eye, and Jim grunts in satisfaction.

“Right, other one,” he says flatly, and McCoy scowls and nobody in particular.

Three more weeks. He can cope with three more weeks.

 

***

## Day 15

It happens when they’re lying in bed, like most things seem to – they’ve just settled down, and McCoy’s listening to the steady beat of Jim’s heart beneath his ear as Jim tells him what he missed in class and the latest insult that Uhura’s thrown at him.

It starts with his fingertips – then it quickly spreads up in his arm in a shaking that he can’t control, and his fingers curl reflexively over Jim’s ribs of their own accord as the tremor takes hold of his arm. It feels like it lasts an age but he knows that it’s only a few seconds and when it stops, he relaxes again. Jim doesn’t.

“Whoa,” he says, sitting upright and dislodging McCoy completely. He lands on the mattress with a huff of surprise. “What was that?”

“A mild seizure,” McCoy mutters, reaching up for him. “Come back.”

“Wait, what?”

McCoy sighs and rolls onto his back, glaring up at where he thinks Jim’s head is. He doesn’t have time for this, not really – he’s tired and cranky and he just wants the next few weeks to be over with.

“Define a seizure for me,” he says, and there’s a brief pause as Jim clearly considers not answering him in favor of beating an explanation out of him.

“A symptom of excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain.”

“And what are my ganglions doing right now?”

“…growing through your brain.”

“I’d be more worried if there weren’t any side effects at all,” McCoy says flatly, and reaches for Jim again. His hands hit warm muscle, and he pulls gently. “Come on.”

Jim lays back down beside him and curls into his chest but his body’s tense, and McCoy knows that his brain is going to running at hyperspeed – going through all of the journals and papers and textbooks that he’s ever read on neurological disorders, the risks and the symptoms and the possibilities and –

“ _Stop it_ ,” he says firmly, taking hold of Jim’s face and tilting it towards his. “Just stop it. I’m fine – it was nothing, and you know it. It was a ten-second tremor in my left arm. That’s all. So get your head out of your memory banks and stop freaking out on me. I do not need this from you, not now.”

Jim holds steady in his grasp for a moment, and McCoy nearly thinks that he’s going to spit and swear at him and tell him to fuck off – but then his whole body relaxes, and McCoy’s caught slightly unaware by Jim suddenly leaning forwards to press a soft kiss to his lips.

“I worry about you,” he whispers, and McCoy sighs. “I worry about you charging into this without thinking it through, without considering the consequences. I’m worried that you’re going to end up hurt and I won’t be there beside you.”

“So stay with me,” McCoy says, pulls him into an embrace. Jim goes easily. He always does.

 

***

## Day 17

“So where do you want to go then? Once it comes back?”

“If it comes back.”

“ _Once_ it comes back,” Jim repeats firmly and a little testily, and McCoy doesn’t push it. “I mean, there must be things you want to see. We can do the Bay first, that's easy, but what else is there? Any sights that you never saw before you lost it in the first place? Anything you’ve wanted to see so desperately in the last few years?”

McCoy shrugs, and turns to him.

“You and Joanna. That’s all I want to see.”

 

***

## Day 19

McCoy wakes slowly, with Jim’s face pressed into his shoulder and his breath tickling his collarbones. It’s quiet in their room – just Jim’s snoring, and the faint sound of people moving around in the corridor, and birdsong outside. There’s nothing out of the ordinary but somehow, he knows that something’s not right. Something’s different.

He opens his eyes out of instinct, and falls off the bed.

“Bones?” Jim grunts, jolted from his sleep, and McCoy sit for a moment on the floor, frozen in shock, before surging into action and scrambling back onto the bed, reaching out for Jim.

“A light! Shine a light in my eyes!”

“What?”

“A _light_ , Jim! Computer, lights!”

There’s a split second following his command – a brief moment when the computer hums its acknowledgement, and its tinny voice repeats his own words – and then. Then.

Everything around him is grey.

He sits in shock and stares. It’s the first time that his world has been anything but black for years – and it’s not shapes, it’s not color, it’s just a grey that’s so dark it’s nearly black but it’s something different. It’s a _change_. He moves his head, and the grey changes ever so slightly – he waves his hand in front of his face and there’s a dark shadow that passes in front of him. He starts as Jim grabs his biceps quite suddenly, and the shadow reappears – but it’s not his hand. It’s Jim. McCoy can see Jim.

“ _Bones_ ,” Jim says urgently, as though it’s the third time that he’s said it, and McCoy grins. And he doesn’t give Jim any warning – he just launches himself at him, pushing them both back into the middle of the bed and kissing him hard, laughing and trying to talk at the same time and he doesn’t let up until Jim’s hands on his waist push him away, his grim firm but gentle.

“I can see grey!” McCoy exclaims, and it might sound pathetic and it might not be much but it’s a whole world compared to what he’s used to. “Jim, it’s starting to work!”

“You can see the light difference?”

McCoy replies with an enthusiastic kiss. Jim’s late for his first class.

 

***

## Day 23

McCoy wakes with a splitting headache, and snaps furiously at Jim when he tries to persuade him to come to class. The argument ends with a slammed door and a heavy weight in the air, and McCoy spends the day feeling sorry for himself, curled up in bed, with the lights off. He’s becoming more sensitive to the light now, and his eyes are rebelling against t.

 

***

## Day 26

“There’s a window there.”

“...yeah, there is. Well done,” Jim says slowly, as though McCoy’s ganglions are destroying the brain cells as they’re growing through them. McCoy kicks him in the face in retaliation.

“Yeah thanks, asshole. Try again.”

“You mean you can see it?” Jim asks and this time, he sounds genuinely pleased and surprised. McCoy shrugs as Jim takes hold of his flailing foot and pulls it into his lap, rubbing gentle circles into his arch.

“I think so. It’s like... it’s not just light anymore, it’s almost a rectangle of light. But then, I know that the window’s there, so it could be psychological.”

Jim’s thumbs stop pressing into his foot then and he moves from underneath McCoy’s legs, and the whole couch bounces and shifts. And then there’s a very sudden and very person-shaped object in front of him. McCoy’s heart skips a beat.

He reaches up his hands, very slowly, and places them on Jim’s shoulders. He doesn’t miss. He doesn’t hit Jim’s head or neck instead. The fabric of his t-shirt is soft under his palms.

“Hey,” Jim says, and McCoy finds himself unable to speak.

 

***

## Day 28

It doesn’t happen in bed.

It happens as they’re walking across campus. It’s the third day that McCoy’s left their room without his cane and felt confident about not bumping into people. It’s the second day that he’s stopped in front of the main administration building and stared up at it, eyes tracing the outline of its front elevation. 

That’s what he’s doing when it happens. Although what exactly _does_ happen, he’s not sure. He’s staring up at the brickwork, and then –

Nothing.

And then he wakes, and everything is _black_ , and he thinks for a moment of terror that the treatment’s failed and he’s lost it all again and after four weeks of injections and test and eyedrops that it’s gone. But then the moment passes and he gives himself a mental smack for acting like a teenager, and opens his eyes.

The room is bright – but he can’t tell immediately where he is. It’s not their room, but it smells familiar. Comforting. Clinical.

“You scared the hell out of me,” Jim says quietly, and McCoy turns to face him, and that’s when he realizes that they’re back in the med area. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You just... fell. You started seizing, and you wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t keep your head still and nobody would help me, they just watched. I managed to activate your bracelet, they came pretty quickly. But you wouldn’t stop.”

He sounds so small and terrified and lost, and McCoy feels an ache of pain for inadvertently causing it. He’s witnessing fits before, mostly as a med student, and he knows how helpless they make you feel. And for Jim to have had to watch _him_ seizing...

He holds out his hand. His whole body is sore from the seizures, and his knees sting – probably from when he fell. Jim takes his hand and climbs onto the bed with him, fitting his body into the small space and wrapping himself around McCoy as though he can protect him from the world.

 

***

## Day 30

Jim crashes his motorbike on his way home from a party in the early hours of the morning and is rushed to the nearest hospital with ten broken bones, half of his face scraped raw and a shard of metal stuck in his side. He’d been rushing back because McCoy had commed him, telling him that his toothbrush was _red_.

Sitting in the emergency room, waiting for the surgeon to remove the chunk of the motorbike from Jim’s chest, McCoy pushes the heels of his hands into his eyesockets and wishes that he could burn them out for the trouble that they’ve caused.

 

***

## Day 33

They operate on Jim for four hours – and then he goes straight into Intensive Care, and McCoy’s pretty sure that Pike pulled a few strings on this one because he’s never seen a case like this get so much attention; he’s never seen so many nurses hovering around one patient, just in case the biobed begins to scream at him.

They let McCoy in eventually, after an awful lot of insisting that Jim needs to rest. That’s probably in part due to Pike too – McCoy knows that the older man had spotted him earlier, pacing up and down the hallway outside the operating theatre.

It’s like some sort of strange role reversal from just a few days previously – he’s sat there in the room while the regenerators knit Jim’s bones back together, and the biobed beeps its approval of his progress every few minutes. There are more regenerators on the side – dermal ones, ready to be used to clean up his scrapes and bruises once the bones are fixed and his internal organs are fully healed.

It’s only when he’s falling asleep that he realizes that Jim’s hair is blond.

 

***

## Day 34

Jim Kirk is an attractive son of a bitch, and he knows it.

And now, McCoy knows it. But he doesn’t just know it, he can _see_ it – every part of his face that he’s traced a million times but never been able to quite put together to form an accurate image in his mind, every perfect familiar part is finally a complete thing. And better yet, it’s in color.

The biobed beeps in a gentle alert as Jim wakes from his sleep and groans in residual pain, and turns to McCoy. He cracks his eyes open and blinks a few times, and his face twists into something between a half-smile and a grimace.

Even beneath the bruises and raw skin he’s the most beautiful thing that McCoy’s ever seen, and he shines in blue and gold in front of him.

But he can’t afford to have a miniature breakdown, not now, not when Jim needs him. So he holds it in, holds in his joy and excitement and relief and love until Jim’s smooth and unmarked and they can go back to their room, whole and healthy and unbroken.

 

***

## Day 36

He goes for a check-up exactly five weeks after the beginning of his treatment. Tannenbaum spends an hour testing each eye, with lights flashing and circles on green and red backgrounds and which is the sharper image?

He prescribes him more eyedrops and painkillers, with strict instructions, and then smiles.

He tells McCoy to take it easy; he tells him not to overdo it. To wear sunglasses in bright sunlight, to keep lights dimmed indoors whenever possible, to avoid stroboscopic lighting. To give his eyes time to fully develop – and not do any permanent damage to them before they’re finished fixing themselves.

McCoy listens to him and takes everything in and beside him Jim does the same, but he wants to get out of the room, he wants to get off the campus. There’s a shuttle arriving at the Bay port in just over an hour, and he’s going to be there to watch all of the passengers disembark. He wouldn’t miss it for the world.

He’s going to see his daughter.


End file.
